Art is the Weapon: A Danger Days fic
by Slaughtermatic
Summary: My interpretation of Danger Days, in narrative form. The term "Fanfic" is used loosely here because I basically had to come up with everything myself, we don't know a lot about the Danger Days world as it is. There will be one chapter per canon song.
1. Chapter 1

In the middle of the summer in Neo Pasadena, California, it was a particularly hot day, 109 degrees Fahrenheit according to the display on the wall. The only school in Battery City did not have any air conditioning, and the students filled the room with body heat. Yet in a classroom full of forty-five students in the ten-eleven year old range, there was only one person who cared in the slightest.

These days were the hardest for the little girl. It took an immeasurable amount of self control not to show how unbearably uncomfortable she was. It wasn't the heat, she could deal with that. It was the sweat. The sweat made her want to move around, or scratch an itch that it caused. It made her want to wipe a bead of sweat that would fall down from her forehead. But she absolutely could not. If she made any indication that all was not right, that she was not perfectly happy, that the world wasn't precisely as it should be, they would know that she wasn't taking her pills. And then they'd find out that her parents weren't, either, and they'd be punished. She didn't know how, though, because in all of her ten years she'd never heard of any other person who wasn't taking their pills.

There were days, like this one, where the little girl contemplated just taking the pills, maybe just once, and forgetting that it was hot, and that her clothes were uncomfortable, and that there was a bead of sweat running down her face. How great must it be, she thought, to be absorbed in the synthetic happiness that Better Living Industries' pills provided. But she must not. To do so would make her another mindless drone, like the ones surrounding her. Her parents didn't want her to become that way, and the little girl, an obedient child, had not. Her parents sent her to school with a bottle of fake pills every day. She acted, as her parents excruciatingly taught her to, as if everything was marvelous, as if she was on the pills. But every day, as soon as she got home, the little girl was eager to take off her black and white school uniform and don anything with color. Her parents adored color- most likely, the little girl figured, because it contrasted so heavily with Better Living Industries' constant use of black and white. Even now, she noticed, everything in the classroom she was in was black and white. The desks, the floor, the walls, the board, the pen the teacher was writing with- all black or white. The little girl wondered if color somehow interfered with the effects of Better Living Industries' pills, or maybe if whoever was in charge just really liked the style of it. How powerful those invisible people must be to be able to change the color of an entire world just because they like it.

The instructor, this being history class, was talking about the fires of 2012. They were in the summer of that year, so it would have been close to exactly seven years ago from that day. The little girl was too young to remember them.

"The extinguishing of the fires of 2012 was one of the first of Better Living Industries' great acts to help humanity. They wouldn't help get the world back on its feet after the Helium Wars until its end in 2014," said the instructor in her eerily monotone voice.

The Helium Wars, now that the little girl remembered. Only a little though. She remembered her parents moving from place to place a lot, and she remembered a lot of explosions. But that was about it. How many times, the little girl wondered, were they going to hear this story? How many times was she going to be told about how the helium wars left the world in a state of complete misery and disrepair, which Better Living Industries cured with their pills? How many times was she going to hear that the Better Living Industries generously used their profits to rebuild infrastructure in a new nation that would be fiercely monitored so that nothing like the Helium Wars ever happened again? "Pay close attention," the instructor droned, "Because the following will be on the exam."

But as she started to write on the board, a loud screeching sound blared over the school's intercom. The little girl almost jumped, but stayed perfectly still. After all, the feeling of unpleasant shock was another unnecessary thing that Better Living Industries' Life Improvement Supplements TM wiped away. The screeching, the little girl thought, must have been some kind of error with the intercom. She wondered what the instructor would say. Better Living Industries had built this school themselves, and she knew she would never dare to imply they had done something wrong.

The screeching quieted down, and then stopped. And as soon as it did, a deep, cool male voice said, hypnotically, "_Look alive, sunshines..._"

The little girl was confused. This wasn't a school announcement, those were always delivered through the same monotonous female voice. The voice from the intercom spoke again, this time more loudly and aggressively, "_109 in the sky, but the pigs won't quit! You're here with me, Doctor Death Defying. I'll be your surgeon, your proctor, your helicopter! Pumping out the slaughtermatic sounds to keep you live. A system failure for the masses, anti-matter for the master plan!_"

What on Earth was this man _saying_? The little girl was bewildered beyond belief, but she couldn't show that, of course, and she didn't. She was shocked to see, however, that the instructor was looking around with a definite look of bemusement on her face, and had opened the door to the cabinet underneath her monitor. Before the little girl had time to contemplate this, the voice continued, more loud and strong with each word, "_Louder than God's revolver, and twice as shiny!_ _This one's for all you rock and rollers, all you crash queens and motor babies, LISTEN UP!_" Suddenly, there was a guitar playing with the voice. The little girl had never heard such a sound before, or at least could not remember it, as the new world Better Living Industries created did not allow music. The unfamiliar sound played with the intercom, shouting now, "_The future is bulletproof, the aftermath is secondary. It's time to do it now and do it loud. Operation liberation is in effect! Killjoys, make some noise!_" The guitar continued to play as the entire class heard a loud banging sound outside of the door.

The instructor, having dropped all pretenses of being under the influence of Better Living Industries' pills, had grabbed a raygun from the cabinet beneath her monitor, and had no sooner pointed it at the door before it was violently kicked open, and a laser beam shot fired directly at her chest. The instructor was not allowed any final words, she fell over, bleeding profusely and shouting, before going silent.

The rest of the class showed no reaction, but the little girl had no choice but to scream. The one who fired the shot, a red-headed man wearing ludicrously colorful clothes, came in the class and looked directly at the little girl. "We've got a live one!" he said.

The little girl was horrified. She now knew what was happening. This man, this tall, red-haired man wearing a red-white-and-blue jacket, dirty blue jeans, and black fingerless gloves holding a yellow raygun, was in charge of punishment. He had just punished the teacher for not taking her pills, and she was now about to get her just desserts. Immediately, the little girl fell to her feet and plead for her life. "Please!" she screamed, "Please don't! I'll take the pills, I'll take them, I swear! It was my parents, they wouldn't let me take them! I wanted to, but they wouldn't let me!" Meanwhile, all of the other kids stood in their seats, observing the man with the gun.

The man smiled, and the little girl knew all was lost. "Relax, kid. You're going to be fine." He turned back toward the door. "I've got this one. Kobra Kid, go to the next room and grab as many as you can! The teachers aren't drugged, we don't have a lot of time!"

The man approached the little girl, knelt down to her level, and took her hand. "You're going to be okay," he said again. "We're here to save you." He wiped a tear from the littler girl's eye, and she was immediately at ease, maybe even comforted. The man stood up, and looked around at the rest of the classroom. "All right, you little shits!" He shouted. "Follow me." Having no reason to disobey, every student got up and followed the man, who was guiding the little girl by her hand. The little girl was still scared, but the man said she was going to be fine, and what choice did she have but to believe him?

The man led the little girl to the hallway. What she saw was absolute chaos. There was a dead man, also dressed in ridiculous clothing, lying on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood. People who the little girl knew to be instructors were firing shots at the intruders, each of whom had group of kids following them. She saw one boy who looked teenaged hold up a girl about her age like a human shield. Horrifyingly, she saw an instructor fire right through him, killing them both. Now crying uncontrollably again, the little girl was running through the crossfire with the man, holding her free arm over her head. The man who had taken her never stopped running, but occasionally shot his laser-firing gun in some direction.

After what seemed like an instant of adrenaline-enhanced running, the little girl saw that they were approaching the exit, two large steel slide-in doors which were somehow wide open, as they never were this time of day. The man and the little girl were now running faster than ever. No sooner had the man, the little girl, and about ten of the trailing students made it out the door before they violently slammed shut, crushing one poor, uncaring student to death. But the little girl did not have time to mourn for him. She saw that a lot of other students and men wearing colored clothes were outside the school, and there were a few cars outside as well, each with their own unique colors and designs. The little girl saw a blue van with yellow and black stripes, which the man, squeezing her hand tightly, was running for. The little girl and all the children around were led into the back of the van, and she saw that there were already many other students sitting quietly in there, waiting.

The red-haired man ran into the driver's seat, started the van, and drove away as quickly as he could, jerking all the kids in the back- though only one was bothered. The little girl had an uninterrupted stream of emotions flowing through her. She was scared, confused, angry, curious, anxious...but most of all, she was so incredibly excited that something interesting was finally happening to her.


	2. Chapter 2

The little girl stood in a garage with all of the other kids that had been gathered from her school. In all, there must have been about fifty. The little girl wondered how many could have been killed, how many were supposed to be here. The man with the red hair had not spoken to the little girl the entire drive to wherever she was, he was speaking into a radio the whole time. The engine of the car was too loud and the road too bumpy for the little girl to have heard what he was speaking of. The van parked in this garage and opened to let all of the little kids out, and the red haired man left through a regular door before saying anything. The little girl still had no idea what was going on.

It had been about an hour since the incident at the school, which meant that the students in the room should be taking their pills right about now. But the pills that each student was required to take every four hours was, prior to the incident, neatly upright on each student's individual desk. The little girl saw what she never had before- the effects of the pills wearing off. The students were slowly, one by one, as if a light were suddenly turning on in each one by a timer, coming to a full realization of the world around them. They all looked around, bewildered. Some of them spoke confused mutters.

But this only went on for a few minutes before the small door that the red haired man left through opened. The man who entered was different. He was a slightly shorter man with black hair that went down to his chin. He wore a black shirt, thought the long sleeves were yellow with black stripes starting at the elbow, black jeans, and a faded dark green sleeveless jacket.

"How many of you," He asked, "Do not regularly take BLI's pills? Don't be shy now, raise your hands. The more the better."

The little girl was a bit scared but had gotten over the idea that she was being punished for not taking her pills, so she raised her hand. For a moment, she wondered if anyone else would raise theirs. After all, if she had gotten away with it all these years...but no, nobody else raised their hand. The little girl was the only person in that room with a raised hand.

The dark-haired man smiled. "Good for you," he said. He reached into his pocket and revealed a plain white bottle. He opened it and removed one pill- which the little girl recognized to be a Better Living Industries Life Improvement Supplement ™, and placed it back in his pocket. "There should be enough in here," he said, "For each of you to have one. Share." He handed the bottle to one of the students, who quickly swallowed a pill and passed it the person next to him. "You," He said, pointing at the little girl, "Come with me."

The little girl gave a fearful look, but stepped forward. As she approached the dark haired man, he put his arm around her, and she felt at ease. He opened the door and led her into what appeared to be a diner, though it was empty except for the two of them. He led her, walking completely straight from the door, to a booth and gestured for her to sit, and he sat opposite her. "I'm sure you're wondering what's going on," He said.

"Well...yeah." The little girl couldn't think of anything else to say.

The man smiled. "Well first of all, tell my why you aren't on the pills. Parents won't let you?"

The little girl nodded. "They say...they say that they're wrong, that they don't make you really happy. They say that the pills are just BLI's way of keeping the people under their control."

"And they're exactly right." The man said this matter-of-factly, and his eyes gleamed with approval. "One of the evidently few people who know the truth. The pills are just another part of BLI's domination tactics. They use them to keep you under control. Your generation is the first group of children to be exposed to them...that's why we came to save you."

The little girl was taken aback. "To save us? But...a lot of the kids back there died!"

The man looked down for a second, and then back up, unwavering. "Yes, they did. And we wish that didn't happen. But we saved as many of you as we could."

The little girl gave a look of confusion. "Why did you give those kids in there pills?"

"Good question. You can't just stop taking the pills, you'll go crazy. We're going to have to wean those kids in there off of them. It'll take a few months, but then they'll be ready to join the cause.

"And just what is the cause?"

The man smiled bigger than the little girl had seen yet. "I guess I should have mentioned that first. We are the Killjoys, and our mission is to destroy Better Living Industries and bring the world back to how it used to be- or die trying. How do you feel about this cause?"

The little girl though for a second. How _did_ she feel about that? Her parents always told her that Better Living Industries was evil...but they had rebuilt society, they never denied that.

The man spoke before the little girl could finish her thought. "They may have done some good things, but their intentions have always been of greed and malice. You're too young to know, but there was a time where the world wasn't like this. Where people could actually be happy, without synthetic lies. Believe me, I was there. BLI has tried so hard to erase any proof of that world ever existing, but we were there, kid. And I can't live knowing that that world may never come back." The man's look became serious, he stared directly into the little girl's eyes, piercing her soul. "Listen. The world will never be happy again until we can take these guys down. What they want is to turn the world into an army of slaves that will do their bidding, what we want is for the world to be free. What do you want, kid?"

The little girl didn't really have much of a choice when it was put that way. "Okay then...I'm in."

The man smiled again. "Great to have you, kid. My name's Fun Ghoul."

The little girl laughed. "Cute," she said.

Fun Ghoul suddenly have a look of intense shock, as if the little girl had said something obscene. "You mean you really get it?" he asked, excitedly.

"Yeah," The little girl said after a giggle, "My parents knew some Italian and had some Italian books.

"I already like you, a lot. You're the only one I haven't had to explain the name to," said Fun Ghoul. "Speaking of that, you'll need a name."

"Oh, my name's-"

"No, stop." Fun Ghoul put his hand up to the little girl's mouth. "We don't use our real names," he said. "We can't afford to, you never know who might be listening. We use nicknames. What would you like to be called?"

"Um," said the little girl, "Uh, I guess-"

"No wait, I've got it," interrupted Fun Ghoul. "Girl. We'll call you Girl. It's perfect."

"Um..." Girl couldn't say she hated the name, though she might have preferred something else. "Okay, I guess."

"Trust me, it's perfect, everyone else is going to love it."

"How many of you are there?" asked Girl.

"How many of _us_ are there?" Corrected fun Ghoul, pointing at Girl.

Girl smiled. For some reason, she really liked that. "How many of us are there?"

"Not that many," said Fun Ghoul. "That's what we we're just trying to fix. Us Killjoys are spread across the Zones, but in our little group, there was eight. After Operation Liberation- when we went to your school- there's five of us left."

Girl gave him a look of remorse. "I'm sorry," she said.

Fun Ghoul became serious again. "Don't be. Listen, Girl. What we're doing here is like fighting the sun. We aren't going to win this battle." His face remained solemn even after Girl's became shocked. "That's right. Let me get this through your head as soon as possible: We are not going to be the ones who take down Better Living Industries. We will spend our lives fighting to make it easier for the next ones who come along to take our mission, but we _will_ die trying. That's how this ends. All we're fighting for is the comfort, when we die, that we've taken one small step closer to taking them down. And we'd never have had it if we sat back and never fought."

Girl wasn't sure how to react. "Do you have to be that negative?" She asked. "I mean...there were only eight of you before, there must be fifty of us in there!"

"Fifty kids won't win a war," said Fun Ghoul. "Of you fifty, the twenty or so that survive may be able to gather more, and then _maybe_ that group will have a chance. But don't count on it. If we fight, and if we keep making generations of fighters, we'll win this battle in the end. But you and me, Girl, won't be around to see it."

Girl didn't say anything, but she silently said to herself that she wanted to survive. She wanted to see the downfall of Better Living Industries- something she was unsure of just minutes ago- and she would do whatever she had to to stay alive.

Just then a door to the left of their booth, a different one than Girl and Fun Ghoul had come through, opened, and five men emerged. Girl recognized the first one who exited as the red-haired man who had taken her- had saved her- from her classroom. Behind him was a man with a slightly darker shade than him, who had long, brown, wavy hair and was wearing a black leather jacket and pants. He also had a rather disheartening eye patch covering his right eye. Behind him was a man with short blond hair who wore black and yellow shirt underneath a bright red jacket, who had black pants as well. The other two were easily the strangest men Girl had ever seen. One was a man in a wheelchair, something Girl had never seen, who had long black hair similar to Fun Ghoul's, a full mustache, a goatee, and a beard. He wore a black denim jacket a dirty red bandana. Holding onto his wheelchair, which was controlled by a joystick on its armrest, was a man whose face Girl could not quite see because it was covered by a baby blue helmet with lighter blue polka dots with a very tinted window. He wore a white shirt that cut off at his ribs, and said "NOISE" in black letters across it. He wore white pants with scattered blue polka dots and white fingerless gloves. Strangest of all, he was wearing black roller skates with purple wheels. All of them were approaching the table where Girl and Fun Ghoul were seated.

Fun Ghoul turned to face them. "How was the broadcast?" he asked.

The man with red hair answered, "Uninterrupted. She was right, they haven't been able to touch us on this frequency." He looked at Girl and smiled, "Oh, so she's the only one who wasn't taking pills, huh?"

Fun Ghoul smiled and answered, "Yeah. Good kid too, I can tell there's something strong about her."

Girl beamed and said, "My name's Girl, pleased to meet you."

The red-haired man sat himself at the booth, and everyone who was with him followed, except for the man in the wheelchair and the one with the roller skates. "Girl, a nice name, I'll bet Fun Ghoul picked that one. My name's Party Poison." Party Poison extended his hand, and Girl shook it enthusiastically.

The blond-haired man spoke next, smiling as well, "I'm The Kobra Kid, glad to have you with us," and extended his has hand as well.

The man with the eye patch remained silent for a noticeable while before saying anything. He wasn't even looking at Girl, just eyeing Fun Ghoul, with what was surely disapproval. "Jet Star," he said.

The man in the wheelchair spoke, and Girl immediately recognized his voice as the one that played over the intercom back at the school. "Hello there Girl, my name is Doctor Death Defying, but you can call me Doctor D. In our little group I'm in charge of the sound waves, the music, spreadin' the message. You may notice I've suffered a bit of a bang in the Helium Wars, but I'm still mobile. It's an honor to make your acquaintance." He extended his hand and shook Girl's fiercely, then continued, "This behind me is Show Pony. He doesn't speak, but he's quite helpful to have around." Show Pony daintily lowered his hand and did not move it while Girl shook it, then pulled it away, suddenly becoming fascinated with it.

Jet Star spoke once more, plainly and seriously, "Show Pony, turn on the TV, she said something important is happening."

As Show Pony glided over to the bar to grab the remote, Kobra Kid said, "Do you think they might actually acknowledge that anything happened?"

"Highly doubt it," Said Party Poison. The TV, hanging above the bar, turned on, and Show Pony glided outside a third door, which had to have led outside. Girl saw the same Japanese woman that was always on, speaking with that same white background behind her.

"Today," She said, "Better Living Industries is proud to reveal a new security measure, the Exterminator." The screen changed to an image of a metallic robot in the middle of a dirt field. Its shape was like that of an extremely built human. It was down on all fours and had large drills instead of hands. "It has the capability to burrow underground," said the news girl. Just then the drills on the Exterminator started spinning and it rapidly flew into the ground, then rose back up an impressive distance forward and stood up on its legs, which were more like tree trunks, and didn't have any feet. "There are currently three Exterminators in existence. One will protect Battery City while two others patrol the Zones, searching for anyone who would threaten the peace that Better Living Industries provides."

"Wow," Said Party Poison, "So that's what we're up against now. Every day this battle seems to get more and more impossible."

The screen was now back to the news girl and her white background. "Furthermore," She said, "As part of a new security measure, Better Living Industries will release millions of artificial flies into the city and Zones one week from today, all of which are actually cameras which Better Living Industries will use to further enforce peace. We therefore urge you to, starting one week from now, be sure not to attack any flies, as you could be damaging Better Living Industries' property, a crime worthy of a $500,000 fine and up to forty years in prison. Thank you for watching this compulsory message! Signing off from Fact News, the only news." The TV then became its regular black and white fuzz.

Everybody was silent for a while. "Doctor," said Jet Star, "You'll have to come up with a way to combat those flies. If you don't, we're finished."

"I should be able to set 'em straight," said Doctor Death Defying, but his face didn't look so sure.

The door that Show Pony left opened and he rode in. He raised his arms up in the air back and forth and jumped and twirled, as if dancing. Everyone that was sitting at the booth suddenly got up.

"Come on," Said Party Poison, "We've gotta go."

"What's happening?" Asked girl.

"We're being attacked," He said, "They've found us. Doctor, you take the other kids in the van. We'll take trans-am. Let's see if we can make it to the spot at Zone Six."

"Aye-aye," said Doctor Death Defying, "Come on Show Pony, we've gotta pack."

Show Pony lifted his arms into the air and thrust forward, flitting toward Doctor Death Defying, lifting one leg into the air like he didn't have a care in the world.


End file.
